11th August “And O! What transport of delight” Henry Williams Baker

Many years ago, a wise priest told me that I should find a philosophical friend.

This friend, he said, should be someone who you do not necessarily agree with, but who, nevertheless, stimulates you. Such a friend I found in Soren Kierkegaard, the father of Existentialism. Kierkegaard provides for me a mirror through which I can examine my faith and my emotions.

We still bicker and argue, but friends we remain.

Now one of the things that Kierkegaard reflects on, when considering the human experience of faith, is that most people tend to exercise their faith as though they have “fallen asleep in the back of a hay-wagon”. But, he asserts, the leap of faith required to follow God should be more like, “riding a wild stallion”!

Over the past few weeks modes of transport have been a constant feature of my life.

Usually Ben has acted as a generous and able chauffeur. I have however, at times, required the services of other, more capricious, drivers from the Uber family. The experience of this service has opened my eyes to modes of transport. In particular, to the drivers and their vehicles.

To the uninitiated, which includes me, there are a dizzying selection of options. These range from the “Basic” (Prius, Kia etc) through to the “Comfort” (big Mitsubishi, or a Mercedes E Class if you’re lucky) and end up in the heavenly realms of the “Lux” (Mercedes S Class / BMW 7 Series etc) with the “XL” mini-buses and electric “Green” in between.

Now, for someone who does not consider the model and make of cars to be a defining part of his life, I have begun to realise that this is not the case for everyone. I have also realised that I am a mere doorman to an automotive bacchanalian feast. There is, it transpires, a banquet of goodies available in cars untasted by me, and a burgeoning smorgasbord of sensory delights as the cars become more and more expensive.

In particular, the noises a car makes is directly proportionate to the price-tag it demands. Hence, the moment you ascend to the heady heights of “Lux” (a treat once procured for Sarah’s birthday) or even mere “Comfort”, this is the moment that lights illuminate your entrance and whistles and bells accompany every action. In my own car I am merely afforded the luxury of the clicking of the indicator arm and the sound of BBC Radio 4 and 3. (There is definitely more of the Hay-wagon than the wild stallion about my Peugeot.)

However to return to my philosophical friend, Kierkegaard, and his wagons and stallions, it is the drivers of the Ubers that fascinate me.

Having an aversion to anything approaching hiking, rambling or other such ‘fun’(!) walking activities, the Uber driver picks me up outside my church.

Invariably the observant driver puts two and two together, and wonders if there is a connection between my work and the proximity of the building next to me. Within me, there then arises the question, “do I make the Kierkegaardian ‘leap of faith’?”

Being unable to lie convincingly, I begrudgingly decide to confront the inevitable, and, like Abraham before me tolerate the absurd, and confess I am a priest.

According to Kierkegaard, those who possess an unquestioning faith, accepting as they do the dictates of authority, are like those who are asleep on the wagons. Yet my grim experience in the Uber context is that they are like those who ride wild stallions, or at least force me to feel like I am astride one. Once in the car, identity established, I have to listen to 40 minutes of their reflections on faith, sin, the work of the Holy Spirit, the shortcomings of the world, homosexuality, immigration, and any other controversial topic all under the assumption that I share their prejudices (or mad ravings).

The truth is that I am probably a commixture of being too uncourageous, too de-energised and too fatigued by cancer, to be bothered to engage with the stallion riding roughshod over me.

Lamenting this existential crisis to Sarah, she takes pity on me and orders me a Comfort class Uber. Not only do I get more legroom, a better class of lights and sounds, but also the option of silence from the driver. This of course brings a further existential crisis: I’m now sat in a tin box with another person; thus, the temptation to talk is unavoidable. Despite my most determined efforts to look pre-occupied, on deaths-door, or transacting a multi-billion pound deal on my smart-phone, I begin to crack, the space grows thicker and thicker with unspoken words, and I blurt out, “so have you been busy?”

And so it begins, the dam is breached, the floodgates opened, the stallion released and the hay-wagon overturned, and once again I am subjected to ecclesiastical diarrhoea, and the lights and sounds offer no distraction.

Perhaps the most famous of Kierkegaard’s progeny was Jean-Paul Sartre. He once said, “Hell is other people”. Sartre is wrong, Hell is so-called-‘Christian’ Uber drivers, and my inability not to make small talk.